What do you mean? Headphones don't sound like headphones?
edit: wait, it utilizes head tracking like the Headzone Pro... nah, I don't want that. I just want something that recreated a full surround sound in your headphones for gaming. That head tracking is useless for that purpose, as your head should generally always be pointing towards the screen anyways... you ARE gaming.
edit 2: Damn, I really want the Headzone (non-tracking), It decodes DTS... something the Mixamp doesn't do... ARGH... XD
edit 3: In all honesty, I WOULD buy the Headzone... I would. I mean, look at this guy!
It's so awesome, he fell asleep to the sounds of explosions!
If by some miracle I clear my debt, I WILL buy the Headzone, mark my words.
It's going for $1100 for the base alone on Amazon. Damn I wish I had a G for this. I wish they had a loaner program or something. I would do almost ANYTHING to get my hands on one.
edit 4: OMG, does anyone speak German, to translate what he says about the Headzone vs Mixamp 5.8 about 4 minutes in?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DISJzrAreQE
edit 5: From some random forum:

Quote:

Well i recently got the beyerdynamic headzone so i will sell my a40 mixamp but to be honest the difference between the two is very slightly noticeable. Another thing is that the headzone adds a little more sound stage.

Ah! This is the million dollar question and a very legitimate one if you consider buying an almost 2'000$ emulation system.

IF I had to make an analogy I would say comparing the headzone to Dolby headphones is like comparing Microsoft paint to Adobe photoshop, they are both software and they are both doing the same thing, image editing but the difference is in how the they do it and the quality they offer.

I'm mostly a gamer and a cinephile so my quest for the best multi-channel emulation over headphones has been a long one, I started with the obvious choice of using Dolby headphones but I never was very satisfied with them, so I moved on to headphones specifically made for multi-channel, there's a big market for gaming headphones and I can say I have owned most of them (Tritton, Turtle Beach, Astro), some are doing multi-channel emulation like the Astro with the mix amp and other are trying to implement multiple drivers in the headphones themselves, the problem was that the sound/build quality of the headphones was quite bad and even if some were offering an upgrade from Dolby headphones, I still wasn't very satisfied with the multi-channel effect.

This is when I decided to invest in the headzone and all I can say is I was blown away, it's a complete different experience and it's hard to put into words but I will try to describe as accurately as I can. The sound simply expends beyond the headphones, at some points and it still happens to me I have to remove the headphones to make sure my speakers are actually off, the multi-channel emulation is simply the best I ever heard (or was until I purchased the smyth realiser A8, but this is a different story), things that are vastly improved compared to Dolby headphones are the accuracy of surround effect, the speaker placement or one could say the positioning of speakers in the virtual room, sound dynamic and the effect of spazialisation.

On top the headzone let's you 'play' with the virtual room you're trying to recreate so you can increase/decrease the room size and you can also play on the room acoustics to make it sound bright or dark, the headtracker is a nice addition but only if you're sitting off center when watching a movie or playing game, I'm pretty much sitting dead center In front on my screen so the little head movement I make don't have much impact. Another nice addition is that you're able to use it with any headphones and while the DT-880 are very nice headphones (and by far the most comfortable I owned) I used it with LCD-2 and Denon D7000 and boy this is FUN, it's like sitting in the theater but with headphones on/

Last but not least, it's a pretty nice amp and the sound emulation can be bypassed all together so it can be used as a stereo amp too.

I'm happy to take any question or offers in PM, this has to go since I received my Realiser A8.

Cheers

I so need this... badly. So much, that it will be the very next major audio purchase I make. No more beating around the bush. I got my two main headphones, my amp/dac setups... now for what will really make games and movies stand out.

MLE: about the german video review of the headzone. The reviewer is very enthusiastic about them, practically blown away. The thing is, he's quite experienced with gaming headsets, but I get the impression he hasn't tried hi-fi phones for gaming before. He says the mmx are the best phones he ever heard. He does say, that the mixamp is also very good and way more practical in terms of price. He recommended the headzone for people who seriously consider dropping that much cash for audio components, but calls it totally out of reach for most. There was no thorough comparison between the two amps. He did say, he had two mmxs at the time, so he could switch between the headzone and astro output easily and frequently. Still no big differences to talk about, it seems. His final verdict is, that the headzone is definitely the best thing, especially if you're gonna use it for blurays as well. I think you should make sure, you can return them without a loss, if you decide the extra cash is not worth it. More so as it seems, you might have to give an arm and a leg - or worse - your dt990 for it. ;)

Thanks for those impressions Naked Snake. I could definitely understand your wording, so don't discredit yourself.

Thanks MLE , your thread is the reason I got into the headphone game, and I am glad I did, just wish I had done it sooner. I need to stop coming back though. The more I read this thread, the more I am itching for an upgrade . I already had my eye on the DT990 but now I am getting curious about the Q701. I'm gonna hold back though, for now that is.

Originally Posted by Naked Snake
I need to stop coming back though. The more I read this thread, the more I am itching for an upgrade . I already had my eye on the DT990 but now I am getting curious about the Q701. I'm gonna hold back though, for now that is.

I also want to say thanks to MLE. I first read through the AVS forum thread, but got disappointed over the last few hundred posts, so I am really glad I found this. I almost started to believe Turtle Beach was the best... For the last 3 weeks or so I have read a lot, but was given a very limited budget to work with :(.

I ended up putting in an order for the Samson SR850 last night. Was looking for the best under 60$ open headphones (need to hear the baby wailing/wife yelling) and that seemed like a good one. Currently playing BF3 on the pc with standard onboard sound. I do have a Yamaha receiver with Silent Cinema laying around, so I will have to try that out. It will have to be better than the Logitech behind the head earphones (with the pads long gone, man they hurt). I am thinking of ripping the mic out of them, but I doubt that will end pretty.

I do have a question: anyone with DH used Mumble on the pc with positional audio? I have thus far found out that it uses DirectSound 3D, but can't tell if it would output a 5.1 signal for use with DH. And it would seem the only way to get it into DH would be through a sound card and not the mixamp (unless Dolby Live works with that, but who knows!).

No, the E7 will bypass the soundcard, rendering the surround processing useless. You just want to attach an amp to the Xonar. The E11 is better than the E7's amp section, and the E9 is even better than either, especially for the DT990s.

Originally Posted by thefranklin
I do have a question: anyone with DH used Mumble on the pc with positional audio? I have thus far found out that it uses DirectSound 3D, but can't tell if it would output a 5.1 signal for use with DH. And it would seem the only way to get it into DH would be through a sound card and not the mixamp (unless Dolby Live works with that, but who knows!).

Why the heck does Mumble use DirectSound3D instead of OpenAL? That makes zero sense for a cross-platform application like that, and such an actively-developed one at that. (And yes, I read up on it on its page.)

Regardless, if that's the case, you'll have to use a wrapper like ALchemy or 3DSoundBack to get proper positional audio in the first place on Vista or Win7, otherwise it gets knocked down to basic stereo.

I'll try messing with it for a bit, though the sound clip it uses for testing isn't exactly the best for gauging positional audio.

I've been reading through this thread and its been a massive healp in narrowing my possible choices. Basically i'm looking for an all purpose headphone which does my music (pop, rock, classical- in that order) and games and films in DH.

I'm down to the HD 598 and K/Q701 at this point. I notice that people say the AKG has more clarity and precision than the Sennheiser. This sounds attractive for gaming in DH, but I wonder whether it is worth it if it is going to be too revealing for my music. I mostly listen through Spotify and, though I don't currently have a set up which I can test this on, I assume that even set to high quality streaming (allegedly 320kbs), it will get found out by the K701?

Second point is price: in the UK the HD 598 is approx £170, the K7xx £210 and the Q701 £265. I don't have an amp yet, so i would need to buy one for the AKGs. I don't think my budget will do the Q701 and an amp atm and i'm not convinced that its worth the mark up (to me) over the K7xx anyway.

So, ultimately, would the improvement in DH clarity (and, indeed, in music as well) be worth the extra money for the K701 (+ say an E9), and not make my streamed music sound terrible, to justify going for it over the HD 598?